Three Bedford County artists will take part in Franklin County’s Artisan Studio & Harvest Tour this coming Saturday and Sunday. The three are members of Art Vision Gallery and Studio, located on Scruggs Road.

“What I knew about running an art center was absolutely zero,” Sara Braaten said Friday evening when the Bower Center’s Sara Braaten Gallery was dedicated. “I had other people step up and say, ‘OK, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, I’ll help.’”

A painting by Franz Beisser is being raffled to raise money for Big Otter Mill, a historic mill on Va. 122 near Bedford.

Beisser, now retired, founded Bison Printing, located just west of Bedford. It’s a family-owned business that is now run by his sons.
Art has long played a big role in his life. When he first got the business rolling, nearly 40 years ago, one of his marketing tools was to do pen-and-ink drawings of churches for the covers of their church bulletins which he printed.